NRL: Return to speak volumes

Fans are closer to the action at Mt Smart.

If the Warriors feel like they are getting an extra lift from the crowd today, it might be because their fans are almost twice as close as they have been in previous home games this season.

The return to Mt Smart, for the first time this year, will provide a reminder of what they have been missing during the Season of Eden - fans just metres from the action, able to provide an intimidating atmosphere for the opposition and spark the home side.

Eden Park's regrettable design makes that impossible, unless there is a crowd upwards of 25,000.

Fans in the front row of the East Stand at Mt Smart today will be less than 9m from the sideline, able to hear the players and feel the collisions. Their counterparts in the South Stand will be about 10m away and the West Stand just over 13.2m.

"The crowd is right there on top of you and that definitely lifts the team," Shaun Johnson said. "It feels like home. It will be a real buzz to be back there."

At Eden Park, the closest fans in the North Stand are more than 26m from the sideline. Across the stadium, the nearest spectators are an average of 18m from the action.

The problem, of course, is the historical need to have combined cricket and football grounds and is almost unique to New Zealand. In Australia, AFL and cricket are natural partners and the other football codes are almost always played in rectangular, football-specific grounds.

The cricket/league mix used to happen in Australia - with league at the Sydney Cricket Ground and North Sydney Oval, among others - but is rare now. Most of the other cricket-playing nations have cricket-specific grounds.

It's all about atmosphere and that intangible I-was-there feeling. It's the biggest carrot to get fans to the games and away from their armchairs and televisions and that feeling is harder to generate in vast, cavernous venues.